On Feb. 8, Lyn Alden said the U.S. Federal Reserve is shifting into a "gradual" money-printing phase, expecting balance-sheet growth to roughly match bank assets or nominal GDP and to lift asset prices only mildly. CME FedWatch showed 19.9% odds of a March cut, down from 23%, as markets weigh Jerome Powell’s guidance and leadership uncertainty.

On Friday, a16z crypto managing partner Chris Dixon argued that non-financial crypto applications have lagged due to scams, extractive behavior, and regulatory pressure, and he emphasized a 10-year build horizon. On Sunday, Dragonfly’s Haseeb Qureshi countered that these products failed because demand was absent, while Castle Island’s Nic Carter said venture theses must prove out within a 2–3 year deployment window.

Global Google search interest for the term "crypto" is hovering near its 12‑month low while the digital asset market cap has dropped from over $4.2 trillion to about $2.4 trillion. At the same time, the Crypto Fear & Greed Index recently hit an all‑time low of 5, indicating extreme fear comparable to the sentiment seen after the 2022 Terra ecosystem collapse.

More than 23% of traders now expect the Federal Open Market Committee to cut rates at its March 2026 meeting, up from 18.4% on the previous Friday. Expectations center on a 25-basis-point reduction as markets react to Kevin Warsh's nomination as the next Federal Reserve chair and weigh its impact on liquidity and risk assets.

According to the CFTC, it reissued a staff letter on Friday to broaden payment stablecoin issuer criteria to cover national trust banks, amending Staff Letter 25-40 issued on Dec 8, 2025. The move aligns with the GENIUS Act signed in July 2025 and follows the FDIC's December 2025 proposal outlining how banks could issue stablecoins via subsidiaries.

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty declined by about 11.16% at block 935,429, marking the largest single adjustment drop since China’s crypto mining crackdown in 2021. Difficulty currently stands near 125.86 T and is projected to fall again on February 23 to around 112.7 T, alongside a hashrate pullback linked to a broad market downturn and weather-related shutdowns of U.S. miners.

On Thursday, crypto exchange Gemini said it will exit the United Kingdom, European Union and Australian markets while cutting its workforce by 25%. The firm plans to concentrate on expanding in the United States and scaling its Gemini Predictions platform, which has attracted over 10,000 users and $24 million in trading volume since launching in December 2025.

The Aster decentralized exchange and perpetual futures platform announced on Thursday that its new layer-1 blockchain testnet is open to all users, with a mainnet release targeted for Q1 2026. The project, which rebranded in March 2025 into a perpetual futures DEX and competes with Hyperliquid, plans to roll out fiat on-ramps, open-source its code and expand token utility as perp DEX volumes surged into the trillions of dollars in 2025.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Congress on Wednesday that the government will keep Bitcoin seized in asset cases but will not instruct private banks to buy BTC during a downturn. He said $500 million in retained BTC has grown to over $15 billion, and acquisitions must remain budget‑neutral under a March 2025 executive order.